In my dreams!

Ever since I was a young girl, I have dreamed of being an energetic housewife, baking and cooking from scratch. I would keep an immaculate house as well and my washing would be as white as snow.

Of course, I would iron everything that was on the line and my pantry shelves would be well organised with the spices kept in alphabetical order. And it was so for the first two years of my first  marriage.

But then much sickness came into my life, heralded by displaced discs and Scheurmann's Disease, and the dream evaporated as quickly as my energy and eroded discs.

This dream kept springing back in fits of discontent with myself and no small amount of false guilt. With the onset of heart disease, diabetes and fibromyalgia, the dream became a nightmare that taunted me. 

Perfectionism pointed its' knobbly finger at me, taunting me and demanding I try harder. It insisted that I find my worth in my homemaking abilities as a woman, and I was miserable as well as in pain.

It took until I was into my 20th year with fibromyalgia to realise that my worth as a woman was not on how well I kept my house. 

I decided to focus on the fact that God loves me just as I am and that helped remove the false guilt.

So now, in my 67th year, and my maladies worsening, I have had to put the dream to rest. I am never going to be the woman of my dreams. I have someone come to clean for me once every two weeks and I have learned to be grateful.

Only in accepting your illness can you find peace. Our womanhood is not only about keeping an immaculate house. And as I look at my clean house today, I am glad that we have the Aged care package that allows home care help. 

As I talk to you now, I smile at the irony: my energy comes through the woman who cleans, and my home is still clean. I have a maid in my later years- and that's something I thought would only come to be in my dreams! 

Today's lists of to do's are:

Make our bed

Do a load of washing

Fold yesterday's clothes

Make a sweet curry stew with rice for dinner